Page 50 of Tiger on the Prowl

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Jay and Olivia dumped the stolen car close to a Metro station in Washington D.C., and took public transportation to a station in the outskirts of D.C. where one of the other agents, Ace, picked them up with a white medical transport van.

It was early evening when they arrived at the mansion. Olivia was impressed by the beautiful villa surrounded by lush grounds. “Is this yours?”, she asked Ace.

“Yes. It belonged to my father. I inherited it after Smith murdered him.”

Shock charged through her. “I’m so sorry.”

Ace simply gave a nod. “He ran the program at the CIA that we were all part of.”

“Jay told me a little about the gift you all have. To see the future. It’s fascinating.”

“And the reason why Smith is after us.” In the entrance hall of the large property, he ushered them toward a door on the left. “Everybody’s in the kitchen.”

Olivia followed him, Jay at her side, as they entered the enormous kitchen with the large dining table. Several men and women were already crowding around the table, and turned around when she entered.

“Hey, everybody,” Ace said. “This is Olivia. Olivia, this is Phoebe, Michelle, Lilly, and Fox. Yankee you’ve already met briefly.”

“Hi,” she said, “It’ll probably take me a little while to remember everybody’s names.”

Phoebe, who appeared to be heavily pregnant, addressed her, “I’ll show you later where you and Jay are staying, but let’s have something to eat first. Lilly helped me make dinner.”

“Can I help with anything?” Olivia asked.

“No, it’s ready. And the guys will clean up later,” she said with a look at Ace. “Right?”

“Absolutely,” Ace replied and kissed her on the cheek, before he helped her sit down at the dining table.

The dining table was already set, and everybody joined Phoebe, and helped themselves to the various dishes laid out in the center of the table. Olivia sat down next to Jay. She wasn’t very hungry, since she’d had a large lunch with her parents, but she put a small amount of salad on her plate.

“Are you guys running facial recognition on Smith yet?” Jay asked.

“Yep,” Fox said, “we started the moment we had a clear picture of him. It’ll take a while though.”

“More than just a while,” Michelle added. “There are millions of pictures and video recordings, and we’ve gotta be thorough.”

“Michelle’s right,” Fox added, “and we had to loosen the parameters to allow for the possibility that Smith is wearing disguises, which means we might get some false positives, which we have to check manually. Michelle and I will take the first shift after dinner. With some luck, we’ll find out by tomorrow morning who he really is.”

“And then?” Olivia asked. “What will you do with him once you know who he is? Will you kill him?” That thought sent a shudder down her back.

“We can’t,” Jay said. “Smith isn’t the head of the operation. He reports to somebody. He calls him Jones. But we have no idea yet who this Jones is. We need Smith to lead us to him, so we can take down their operation in one fell swoop.”

“And the CIA can’t help you? There must be somebody there that—”

“We can’t trust anybody. We suspect that Smith is part of the CIA, and we have no idea how high up this goes, and how many people are involved in this. They were able to kill Ace’s father, the director of our program, and send over thirty precognitive agents running for their lives. They know things they shouldn’t know.”

Olivia cast a look at the other three agents and realized something. “Have you considered the possibility that Smith is a precognitive too?”

“It’s possible. But when I was close to him, I didn’t feel it.”

Olivia stared at him. “What do you mean by feel?”

“Whenever a precognitive is physically close to another precognitive, we get a tingling sensation on our skin. It’s like recognizing like. I didn’t get that feeling from Smith.”

Jay looked at his fellow agents, and they all nodded.

“Jay is correct. We all feel that tingling sensation when we’re close to each other,” Yankee said. “But unfortunately, the only one who was ever physically close to Smith was Tiger. And if he says he didn’t feel it, then Smith isn’t a precognitive.”